For many in Maine and across the country, Labor Day symbolizes the end of summer, back-to-school sales and a fun three-day weekend. But it’s more than that for me.
This is my fourth Labor Day as the nation’s labor secretary and the U.S. Department of Labor’s 99th. I’ve come to realize that, throughout the history of this vitally important federal agency, Labor Day is and always will be every day.
Across the country and, indeed, in Maine, the Labor Department touches families and lives from infancy to retirement. We ensure that working parents can care for newborns under the Family and Medical Leave Act. We’re also the folks who protect your pensions. Health and safety in the workplace? That’s us. A paycheck that just doesn’t add up? We are your first call. Job training after a layoff, protecting civilian jobs for service members returning stateside, guarding against discrimination at companies that do work for the federal government? That’s us, too.
For decades, our employees, not just in Washington, D.C., but the nearly 640 here in New England, have worked behind the scenes, as wage and hour investigators, statisticians, benefit advisers, workers’ compensation clerks and policy planners.
We’re also investing in the workers of the future. This past week I was pleased to announce a $685,000 YouthBuild grant to the Biddeford Housing Authority to help out-of-school youth earn a high school or GED diploma while learning critical occupational skills in construction, health care and information technology. We also operate the Penobscot Job Corps Center in Bangor and the Loring Job Corps Center in Limestone, along with over 120 others across the country, making us one of the largest providers of education and training for at-risk youth.
And in so many instances, we’ve been ahead of the times. When world conflicts heated up, the Labor Department ensured war-time production of battleships ahead of schedule. And in the 1920s, long before there was a civil rights movement or something called “the glass ceiling,” our Women’s Bureau — the only federal agency mandated to represent the needs of wage-earning women — investigated and reported on the status of female African-American workers.
Speaking of glass ceilings: The first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet was Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. She was the mastermind behind much of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression. She wrote the Social Security Act, created Unemployment Insurance, legalized minimum wage and overtime protections and wove the nation’s social safety net on which millions of workers still rely.
Since 1882, when it was first celebrated in New York City, and 1894, when it became a federal holiday, the first Monday in September has been set aside to honor and celebrate the American worker. We call it Labor Day, and its message is simple: The great American worker is what makes America great.
Hilda L. Solis is secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.
The title of this article was lost in the text. All the author wanted to talk about was the US Department of Labor and all the “great” things that it has done. Granted, over the years, the USDL has had it’s moments and highlights, as of late, it’s not doing much at all to help get people back to work.
You see, this administration is anti-business, and it is determined to push their unworkable “middle-out” economic plan. The policies of this administration have kept unemployment high, and will only make things worse if Obama gets another term.
The American worker is the the best, and the American workforce is what makes this nation great. We need to get a new administration in power that will bring the American workforce back in full force. Vote Romney/Ryan in November.
Romney/Ryan is offering the American work force fewer jobs, lower wages, and less health care. You won’t see American workers cheering for that ticket.
Why should Romney/Ryan continue the failures of Obama? There are already fewer jobs, lower wages, and less healthcare.
Your information is incorrect, but you have to toot the left wing horn. Obama is anti-small business, anti-big business, and anti-American Dream.
In November, 1982, Ronald Reagan had been in office for 22 months and the unemployment rate was 10.8. In October, 2009, Barack Obama had been in office (and George W. Bush had been out) for 9 months and the unemployment rate was 10.0. In July, 2012, the unemployment rate was 8.3.
The unemployment rate in February, 2008, was 4.9. George W. Bush was president and the roof was about to fall in. By January, 2009, when Bush loaded up the U-Haul and boogeyed back to Texas, the unemployment rate was 7.8 and climbing at 1/3 of a percent per month. In the early months of Barack Obama’s presidency, the rate of increase dropped to about 1/4 of a percent per month.
It was a massive struggle to turn things around when the Republicans resisted every effort. Remember Mitch McConnell’s proclamation that first priority for Republicans was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Republicans were adamant that that would happen even at the expense of improvement in America’s economy.
You need to add one more paragraph. During the last two years of the Bush administration and the first two years of the Obama administration, both houses of Congress were controlled by the Democratic Party. During this 4 year period, massive spending was signed into law by both Presidents, with little regard to the effect it was having on the economy. In addition, during the first two years of the Obama administration, the use of Executive Orders against businesses and the common man was rampant. Now that the Republicans hold the House, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is blocking everything that the House sends up that might make the Republicans look compassionate or caring.
And Obama is backing Reid every step of the way.
I heartily disagree that there was little regard to the effect that the spending was having on the economy. Even though our national leaders were born in the 1940’s and beyond, they are not all ignorant of history. The stock market crashed in 1929, less than one year into the administration of Herbert Hoover. President Hoover tried to do something about the oncoming depression, but he was unsuccessful. He had not done enough. By the summer of 1932 we were in the Great Depression. Our national leaders, including Republicans, knew in 2008 that we were looking at economic disaster, very possibly at the scale of 1929-1933. Even Republicans recognized that strong measures had to be taken.
I also heartily disagree that President Obama has used executive orders against business and the common man. If President Obama has been acting against business, then the Dow Jones has certainly behaved in a peculiar fashion as the stock market has doubled from its low point after President Bush’s economic failures. It would be especially hard for Mitt Romney to find fault considering the fact that he has been making $20 plus million a year during President Obama’s administration. Of course he could have been making more than that during the Bush adminstration, but he won’t let the American public know about that. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t making that much money in those years.
Unemployment has continued to be a problem, but in October, 2009, nine months into the Obama administration and therefore nine months after George Bush, the unemployment rate was 10.0. In February, 2008, the unemployment rate had been 4.9. By January, 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.8. That is an increase of 0.29% per month. Unemployment increased at a rate of 0.24% per month in the early months of the Obama administration, until the course of the Titanic could be changed.
Incidentally, in the first 22 months of the Reagan administration, unemployment rose from 7.5 to 10.8. What did Ronald Reagan do to change course? He raised taxes.
You’re presenting the left side of the historical argument. I’m presenting the right side of the historical argument. For the most part, we’re both correct, just looking at things from different perspectives. However……..
When you say that Ronald Reagan raised taxes to help the unemployment rate go down, you’re not really telling the whole truth. Reagan lowered the top tier tax rate from 70% to 50%, and then through the Tax Act of 1986, lowered it to 28%. He did, indeed, raise taxes from time to time, but these raises were specific to legislation that was passed by Congress. By the end of his administration, there had been an overall tax decrease.
There is also this to think about. Forbes magazine did a piece on the growth of federal spending by administration going back to Reagan. These are the “annualized growth of federal spending” figures by administration: Reagan 8.7, 4.9, Bush I 5.4, Clinton 3.2, 3.9, Bush II 7.3, 8.1, and Obama 1.4. Republicans clearly have won the spending race.
And notice that 8.7% growth rate in Reagan’s first term. That was when unemployment hit 10.8% midway through that first term. Is it possible that the Reagan administration talked it out and decided that unemployment that high would mean defeat in 1984 so that meant ratcheting up government spending?
And an explosion in the national debt.
Romney/Ryan = Vulture and Voucher,
Vulture will pick the bones of the American economy for the last few scraps and Voucher will give you a Coupon for when you get old and sick.
The Coupon will have printed on it!
This is NOT a Check!
If Obummer gets 4 more years, there won’t be anything to pick. We’ll be so far in debt, that Chinese will be mandatory in our schools.
Union bosses are the most frequent visitors to the White House. Unions protect their interests, often to the detriment of union members. They force members to pay dues that they then use to fund Democratic campaigns exclusively. This is scandalous.
We need a change of administrations, fast!
Wall Street, Big Oil and Big Pharma have Union lobbyists beat by a mile. Nice try.
Unions are the voice of the American Workers, Business has the Chamber of Commerce, Workers have Unions.
In the Words of Teddy Roosevelt,
This is the Age of Organization, Business Organizes, so should Labor!
This country runs on labor, but these days workers have to fight for their voices to be heard. Citizens United has rendered us almost silent. Without our voices, we have only our labor to negotiate with. I believe the 2012 Presidential election will come out on the side of labor.
Our economy, and our country, are sunk without workers, and unions are what ensure that workers are treated properly and receive fair compensation for their labor.
The decline of organized labor in recent years has been a disaster for our country. As unions have weakened, the wealth gap has widened and wages no longer continue to increase with the cost of living.
Labor Day is like Memorial Day: we need to remember that it’s not just a vacation, it’s a time to remember and celebrate some of the things that make our country great.
I think a lot of people do not understand that unions have benefitted even non-union workers. The reason that employers offer benefits like vacation and health insurance even if they are non-union is their attempt to keep the employees satisfied without a union. That would not happen if unions did not exist. Busineses are all about the bottom line, and they do not offer benefits out of the goodness of their hearts.